Looks like Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is running into some complications in his efforts to control the South Ossetia territory that he seized with military force back in 2008. According to this Moscow Times story:
“While the Russian authorities are, for the time being, using kid gloves to deal with the opposition at home, they have not shown the same constraint in South Ossetia.
Opposition leader Alla Dzhioyeva suffered a minor stroke after her home was raided by the authorities and her election headquarters was destroyed. South Ossetia's short experiment with democracy came to an abrupt end when Dzhioyeva won 57 percent of the vote in the presidential election versus the 40 percent received by Anatoly Bibilov, the Kremlin protege of outgoing South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity.”
Here is some background information for this story from my friend, Tom M, who is extremely knowledgeable about Georgian affairs:
“As background to this story, Alla Dzhoiyeva won the South Ossetian presidential "election" late in 2011, but she was not the Kremlin's candidate. Consequently, her win by a wide margin was contested in South Ossetia's "courts" where the results were annulled and she was forbidden from running at the runnoff "elections" in March of this year.
She insisted she had won the elections "fair and square" and would not back down. Last week or so, her political offices were raided by the South Ossetian KGB (yes, in South Ossetia the federal police still go by the KGB moniker). She was arrested and struck with a rifle butt in the head, resulting in a stroke and a stay in the hospital where she is in a coma.”
An even more disturbing quote from the same Moscow Times story:
“So why would the Kremlin and Federal Security Service be so upset about the victory of one pro-Russian candidate over another?...
The second reason is even more unpleasant. The world is rapidly moving toward a military conflict in the Middle East. If civil war in Syria is followed by an Israeli strike against Iran, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is likely to seize the opportunity to stage his long-awaited attack on Georgia. There are clear signs of contingency planning for this attack. The 58th Army is under new command, and almost all of its weaponry has been modernized. What's more, waging a war directly after the March 4 presidential election is the best way to stir up a patriotic frenzy and destroy Russia's "radical opposition" at the same time.”
“This reminds me of those who argue that Poland attacked Nazi Germany in 1939, not the other way around.”
Don't expect Putin to be "caring and sharing", he is going to carpet bomb them into the 12th century. Lovely KGB final solution - kill what you can't bend to your will.
Posted by: fernstalbert | February 20, 2012 at 10:25 AM